LLM wrappers: when they are a business and when they are not

The LLM wrappers that survived the 2022 to 2024 startup wave own something their underlying model cannot supply: proprietary data, network effects, or a workflow users already live inside. Everything else was a thin prompt layer over an API, and structurally bad margins killed it as inference costs rose with usage.

April 24, 2025 6 min 304 4.5

Industry 4.0

Industrial ‘As a Service’: Models That Work

Industrial as-a-service flips equipment sales into outcome sales: Rolls-Royce charges per flight hour, Philips per lux delivered, and several manufacturers guarantee uptime through maintenance contracts. It works when real telemetry, clear SLAs, solid financing, and aligned incentives are all in place; without those four, it stays marketing and the vendor never actually assumes risk.

March 21, 2024 4 min 234 4.3